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Just the other side of the fence

February 12th, 2012

In my current role at my new main client I am an integration architect rather than the senior developer/architect; the difference sounds small, my deliverables are virtually the same as are the technical skills needed to produce them, but there is one huge difference and that is WHERE I am sitting. Now I am with the BAs and Accenture consultants rather than the devs, where smartness is more important than the spec of your laptop, where consistently being there and typing when your boss arrives and leaves is better than being able to pull an all-nighter to get a problem fixed.

Now this may sound like I don’t approve of being on the other side of the fence, and historically I have always been one of those who go “What the hell is this?” or “Were they drunk when then wrote this?” when faced with a new spec that rolls down to IT, but after only a couple of months I now have a completely different viewpoint on it. Previously when the business asked for something daft, I would storm up and rant at them and being a senior tech who knew the systems intimately, they would give in to some extent and we would sort it out. But the BAs and PMs are asked by the business to define the impossible and sign their name to it; the business seems to just haggle with the BAs as you would with a used car salesman, and this is a general thing. I checked with other BAs and PMs colleges that I have known throughout my career and all have the same experiences, petty political battles and attempts to hide badly patched systems are jammed into the ring and made the problem of people who genuinely just want to make a single project a success.